The World of Sugar

How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years

De: Ulbe Bosma

Narrado por: Julian Elfer

For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way?

The World of Sugar begins with the earliest evidence of sugar production. Through the Middle Ages, traders brought small quantities to rajahs, emperors, and caliphs. But after sugar crossed the Mediterranean to Europe, demand spawned a brutal quest for supply. European cravings were satisfied by enslaved labor; two-thirds of the 12.5 million Africans taken across the Atlantic were destined for sugar plantations. By the twentieth century, sugar was a major source of calories in diets across Europe and North America.

Sugar transformed life on every continent, creating and destroying whole cultures through industrialization, labor migration, and changes in diet. Sugar made fortunes, corrupted governments, and shaped the policies of technocrats. In Ulbe Bosma's definitive telling, to understand sugar's past is to glimpse the origins of our own world and begin to see the threat that a not-so-simple commodity poses to our bodies, our environment, and our communities.

©2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2023 Tantor

Important work well-told

Very comprehensive account and analysis from the angles and perspectives of the underside of history. You have to love historical details to stay tuned as it can be a tad dry in places, but it’s thematic arcs and socio-economic critique are poignant and much needed

Slanted but informative

Sugar is a capital-intensive industry with a history tangled up in slavery and cartels. It draws anti-capitalist researchers like a sugar bowl draws flies. When the sugar industry grows, it destroys the environment and when it shrinks it throws poor people out of work. The author seems to describe most things done in the industry as exploitive/oppressive/racist…. If one is not a knee-jerk anti-capitalist, one often finds oneself asking with a sigh, is this case an example of bad exploitation/oppression/racism or good exploitation/oppression/racism? Usually there is not enough information on tell. But there is a lot of good information here. I learned a lot

Good topic, boring book

This book has an excellent and fascinating topic, but the author's meandering across dates, themes, and issues with seemingly no logical flow made it boring as hell. The exhausting detail on some issues and glossing over of others also made it hard to keep interest, especially in an audio format. The audio was however well done and the performer gave it his all with the material he had.